


Take the Money and Run

by gingerteaandsympathy, lotsofthinkythoughts (Mianna)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, don't judge us, it's a bank robbery au without any actual bank robbery, it's mostly just sentiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerteaandsympathy/pseuds/gingerteaandsympathy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mianna/pseuds/lotsofthinkythoughts
Summary: If he had to choose any moment to let stretch out forever, this one — with money stowed in the trunk and Rose’s head resting light on his shoulder and the world beckoning, wild and dangerous and open — is a good place to start.





	Take the Money and Run

**Author's Note:**

> This series of ficlets is a collaboration between two girls who just want the world to have more Eight x Rose content! It was a labor of love, much of which was witnessed in real time by our (very patient, very supportive) friends on Tumblr. As you'll see, we tried to link them all together into some semblance of the story, and they vary greatly in length and content. What started as a moodboard spiraled into... well, 10k words of THIS.
> 
> We hope that you enjoy our contributions to this (criminally *wink*) underrated ship.

**_Take the Money and Run_ **

An Eighth Doctor & Rose Tyler AU

 

 

**ONE: _The First Time_**

 

When they meet, they’re both at the end of their ropes, no hope — just an endless slog of days going forward to nowhere. She’s working two jobs, he’s sleeping in his car, a battered old blue thing that sounds terrible. He lingers in the diner over her midnight shifts. They joke over chipped Formica and talk about running away. It becomes a dance, a call and response. "Run away with me, then," he offers, with a cheeky grin, or a wink, or deadpan, or like he's offering marriage, or like he's trying to cut a deal. She finds creative ways to brush him off. "Not yet," and "not 'til next paycheck," and "but what will your wife think?" But it remains, lingering between them — a mutual fantasy.

(“Not that I’d get far,” she says sometimes, sadness and fear hiding behind a _papier-mâché_ smile. He shakes his head, long hair brushing the back of his seat. She could fly, he knows.)

One day he comes in, the diner quiet and empty as always, but she’s different, her hair pulled down asymmetric over her face. (He doesn’t ask, never asks, because he knows. “Run away with me,” he says instead, only there is no cheeky grin, no play. He speaks with the kind of sincerity that can’t be faked _—_ with hope tinging each word _—_ and instead of laughing and shaking her head she nods, slow smile blooming over her face.)

They plan over paper maps and slices of pie and sludgy cups of coffee, at first as an attempt at wish-fulfillment. But then she points to a bank on the map, says, “That one.” Then, “I hear they won't stop you. It's cheaper for them to just let you go, not kick up a fuss.” Her eyes are unexpectedly serious behind the fading bruises and long lashes.

Three weeks later, the bruising has disappeared, and her hair is tied back as they go anywhere, everywhere, money carefully rationed to get them away until they decide where to hit next. She fiddles with the radio, static crackling as he drives with no concern for the map folded haphazardly between them on the bench seat.

A song finally emerges from the crackle: _Go on, take the money and run_ , the singer belts. She laughs once, bright and brilliant and unfettered.

“Good idea, that — but really, what kind of rhyme is ‘taxes’ for ‘justice’?”

“A slant rhyme, I suppose. But it’s for ‘facts is’, Rose.” He doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s rolling her eyes. But she’s laughing, and she couldn't be really annoyed even if she wanted to be. The sun is too high over their heads, the earth and their wheels spinning too quickly, carrying them away from their old lives.

“Alright then, genius.”

She scoots closer to him, the map crunching beneath her thighs.

Things won’t always be this easy — the future stretches out endlessly, a stream of roads and signs in every language imaginable, of scissors and dye over stained sinks, of dreams of loss so terrible they’ll cling to each other just to breathe. Maybe it won’t last forever. But they love the danger and adrenaline. They love the freedom.

If he had to choose any moment to let stretch out forever, this one — with money stowed in the trunk and Rose’s head resting light on his shoulder and the world beckoning, wild and dangerous and open — is a good place to start.

 

 

**TWO: _The Near Miss and First Kiss_**

 

The first time they nearly get caught takes them by surprise. They slip into an alley, a contingency plan marked on a map in blue, from three days earlier when they wandered the city streets, playing young tourists. (Rose’s disposable camera took photos of the skyline and John marked the map. _Memories,_ they’d say to anyone who asked, though no one did.)

It serves them well now, knowing the lay of this foreign land, an endless expanse of concrete and steel. As footsteps approach, he presses her against the brick wall, crowding close, hiding her in the shadows of his own body. Rose stills, the feel of his breath against his face, soft and warm, sending her throat dry for more reasons than just fear.

She can barely see him in the dark, shadows covering his face, only the barest outline of his features visible in the dim light reflected from around the corner. Her mouth falls open and she stares at what she can see, mind whirling in a way that has nothing to do with the chase or the duffel behind her heels, and everything to do with the man in front of her.

She doesn’t dare whisper his name or say anything to break the silence. The pull in her gut that has grown over the past months settles in again, now a familiar old friend — a magnet pull behind her navel. She thinks of him in the corner of her eye driving, or running a towel through his hair, fresh from the shower, or laughing over the rim of a pint glass. The impulse to kiss him grows — to press up on her toes slightly, even out the tiny gap between them, and seal her lips against his.

She considers, thinks of how despite living together in such close quarters — mostly the backseat of his car or dingy motel rooms with only one bed, hours spent with no one but each other for company — he’s been considerate, given her space. It would have been easy for him to assume, to think she was for the taking, and she might even have let him. But he hadn’t.

And that’s enough to decide things for her.

She stretches forward deliberately, hands winding around the back of his neck. She feels his breath catch just before she makes contact.

It’s soft, softer than one might think based on film scenes — two people high on adrenaline and fear and desperation, holding onto each other with no reservation. But quiet inevitability is what fuels her. Her lips dance over his like he might startle and disappear.

He doesn't.

She presses closer, but John doesn’t move.

A sick knot grows in her stomach — already kicking herself for the mistake. The only good person in her life, and he doesn't want her. She's ruined everything.

She starts to pull back, lowering her heels as she pulls her head away.

Then he moves. A hand cups the back of her head, his other hand tightening on her hip as his nose brushes against hers softly before his lips land again. It’s still soft, as though they’re both afraid of spooking the other. Her fingers drift into his hair, tangling in the base of his hairline as the heels of her palms press against the nape of his neck. Suddenly, something breaks and the hunger is there, passing between them with sweeps of their tongues against one another, with the tightening of fingers against cloth and flesh.

She’s not sure how long they stay there pressed together, his hips pressing her into the wall, hands clutching each other so close as they desperately try to occupy the same space.

He nudges her face with his nose, silently begging her to turn, give him access to her neck, and she does, sighing at the first contact.

“I— I think we’re safe now,” she breathes, stuttering to get the words out, up her throat and over her tongue.

She feels his response rather than hears it —  a hum and a smile against her skin.

“Maybe we should continue this somewhere else?” She’s not sure how she manages the sentence with him short-circuiting her brain, but the smirking grin on his face as he pulls away from her makes the effort worth it.

They’re young and desperate — living on the edge of a chasm so deep they could lose themselves in it — but young and desperate and together is not such a bad thing to be, she decides.

 

 

**THREE: _The Close Call_**

 

It had been another close call, which meant it was probably time to skip town again. Rose was suggesting Paris as a logical next stop — _“It's a big city, with lots of crime already… we'll blend right in.”_ — but he knew she was just eager to visit a place she'd always dreamed of, but had never been.

And he was just eager to please. As always.

-

A _polizist_ had stopped John in the street around midnight, holding up his battered wallet. It had fallen out of his pocket, apparently. And it was stuffed with three different forms of currency.

That, in itself, was apparently suspicious, and worthy of comment by the distinguished officer of the law. But John's sharp tongue and broken attempts at German had nearly given the man license to arrest him.

“ _Entschuldigung_ ,” Rose said hurriedly, putting herself in front of John, who wore a wicked grin despite the danger. But what could she expect from a man who ran on a cocktail of adrenaline and impulsivity? “ _Er ist…_ he's drunk, _Herr Inspektor_.” He wasn't. He was a cocky bastard with a quick-draw tongue, but she couldn't exactly say so.

Her German was rubbish, and she knew it, and she suddenly cursed her own ineptitude as she made frantic apologies. But it wasn't enough.

Which is how John ended up with his hands up over his head, fingers laced behind his neck, worry just beginning to form around the corners of his mouth, while the officer called for backup. It was suddenly evident that the man spoke English, because he made his arrest in it - clear and nearly unaccented.

Apparently, they were disturbing the peace and behaving suspiciously. Rose wanted to roll her eyes. If only he’d seen them a few hours ago, quietly holding a bank at (fake) gunpoint. _Disturbing the peace, indeed._

“She has nothing to do with this,” John said, trying to turn his head over his shoulder and speak to the officer. His voice came out muffled by his own shirtsleeve. It wasn’t pleading, but it was insistent.

Rose was formulating plans A, B, and C when the officer received a call over the radio.

 _Feuer_. Fire.

The man barely spared them a parting glance as he left; he merely glared at John and gave a stern warning over his shoulder. Within seconds, the officer was lost in the crowd again, leaving John and Rose free and clear.

“That was close,” John sighed, his arms dropping loosely to his sides. “Have to say, I didn't expect things to go… well, that conveniently.”

“Well, if you weren't always running off at the mouth…” Rose's lips were upturned in a spectacularly dangerous smile as she stepped closer, forcing him to step back again, off of the curb. He balked against a parked car. “You know, _Herr_ Smith, I think there's a lesson to be learned here.”

“What's that?” He did _try_ not to stare at her mouth, but it couldn't be helped, with the way she stood on the curb and leaned over him.

She pulled back. And then her right arm rose, fist falling open, a pair of very shiny, very real handcuffs dangling from her pointer finger, silvery in the light of the street lamps. “The first lesson is: stop protecting me. I can handle myself.”

“Did you…?” His eyes hung on the metal cuffs for a split second before he let out a whoop of excitement.

“That's my girl!” he laughed, lunging forward and sweeping her off the ground. “You're brilliant, you are!" He shouted into the crowd at large, "I taught her that! Everything she knows!" and then, back to her, "He didn't even notice! Ha!” He spun her in an exuberant, rather unwieldy circle, parting the unamused late night crowd.

Rose was giggling, but she arched a brow. “Neither did you.”

He pinned her up against the nearest wall, her feet still off the ground and legs loosely thrown around his hips. Beaming brightly, he crowed, “Oh, I taught you _well_ , didn't I?” And then, he leaned in for a kiss, both hands cupping her head so it didn't smack against the brick. He was so focused on what was warming up to be a monumental snog, he barely heard the rattle of metal, or the snick of the lock clicking into place an instant after. “Rose?”

He tried to move his hands apart. Couldn't.

_Shite._

“You are _not_ using these cuffs for their intended purpose,” he whined as she slid out of the confines of his arms, adjusting her skirt.

“Maybe not. But isn't it much more fun this way?” She tugged on the chain binding the metal cuffs, gentle lest his wrists begin to chafe. She couldn't have him hurting, not so soon.

He knew he had a long night ahead.

-

As he writhes in the pre-dawn grey that soaks their motel room — his wrists still shackled above his head and Rose hovering over him, bare skin moonlight pale and just as out of reach — he says they'll go to Paris if she wants to.

“Promise me,” she whispers, lips close to his ear but not touching, never touching. He jerks against the cuffs.

“Anywhere,” he swears. “Anywhere you want. I'll go where you go.” His voice is hoarse and breathless and more than a little desperate, and he doesn't care, so long as she keeps looking at him _like that_ . So long as she lets him touch her. So long as she lets him stay. “I promise. I _promise_.”

And he's grateful, when she lowers herself to him, her eyes fluttering shut under an onslaught of pleasure — she's just close enough that he can touch the sky.

 

 

**FOUR: _The Inside Job_**

 

When she steps out of the ensuite, dressed in the most expensive dress he's ever seen and she's ever owned, his jaw goes slack. “You’re wearing _that_ to rob a bank?”

Her hand drops to adjust the heel of her spike-heeled shoe, causing the hem to ride high on her toned thigh, and his eyes track over her exposed skin. As she corrects her balance and smooths a hand over the fabric, she rolls her eyes at his blatant ogling. “ _Oui_ ,” she says, tone droll. “I’m going _undercover,_ John _._ It’s sort of the whole point — to blend in, not to be noticed.”

His eyes are still on her, hungry. “Yeah, I don’t think you’re gonna be successful with that, love.”

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Her eyebrow arches as she steps toward him. “Let's make it interesting: if you're wrong, I get the handcuffs tonight.” She tugs him by the lapels, close enough to be distracted by her.

Truly, he's always distracted by her.

“Well, if _you're_ wrong, you'll be in jail tonight.” John wiggles his eyebrows, eyes sparkling with wicked amusement. "So... one of us will be in handcuffs either way, I guess.”

She grins and releases her grip on him.

“Let's go rob some rich people, _Monsieur_ Smith.”

 

 

**FIVE: _The Chance To Leave_**

 

It’s not all nighttime and shadows, this life, strange as it may seem. Sunshine streams down on monuments and old cathedrals and manicured gardens. They hide in plain sight, behind sunglasses and hats as they wander busy streets. Not that anyone suspects — even after their latest and most dangerous job, they’ve never been caught and there's no trail to follow. Still, they check out of the _Le Grand_ and reinvent themselves as tourists, and Rose laughs as she composes perfect shots with the Polaroid she’d bought in the first city they’d stopped in.

(She had pulled it out of the bag beaming.

“Look what I found!” She snapped his photo and the print rolled out of the camera slowly, black on white slowly fading into an image. “No more disposables! This, we can keep!”

“Ah, yes, because what we need is more evidence,” he said, taking a pull from his cigarette and offering it to her. She frowned and shook her head.

“Didn’t think about that — just wanted to remember.” At the sight of her head bowed low and the sparkle gone from her eyes, he felt like an idiot. Or, perhaps more accurately, like the thief he was. Only this time he’d stolen her joy.

“Why?” Because he needed to know, what made this, of all the things she could have bought with the money, worth it.

“I’ll never see all these places for the first time again and… if I do see them, it might be…” She trailed off with a shrug. _Not with you._ He could hear the words in the tilt of her head and the tension of her shoulders.

“Come on, best get one together then,” he said, and her soft hesitant smile was worth the risk.)

Now he smiles gamely as she directs him — he’s intentionally moving in the wrong direction, hoping she’ll come close, shift his limbs into the position she desires. She always composes him with as much care as the other, less incriminating shots, which line the suitcases they live from.

But instead she pins him with one of those looks that only Rose gives, eyes sharp, but humor in every twitch of her lips. “I know what you’re doing.” She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head, freshly dyed brown hair sweeping over her collar.

"Do you? And what’s that?” He smiles, eyes twinkling with mischief as she sighs and takes hold of his shoulders to shuffle him three steps to the left. He moves obediently before leaning in, expectant, to kiss her.

“Yeah, you’re being difficult so I’ll touch you,” she whispers running her nose along his before playfully shoving him back. “You like being bossed around, I think.”

“Clever. And what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothin’. Yet. Need you for tomorrow. After that, who knows.”

Three months before, two months even, and her words — even accompanied by a teasing smile — would have kick-started the worry that she would leave; for weeks, the fear had lingered, hiding behind his lungs and stealing his breath every time she was out of sight.

But not now.

They’ve done and seen too much, spent nights wrapped up together talking about everything and nothing, about the childhoods they'd had and the futures they’d dreamed of. Dreams that led them here, somehow, against all odds.

(“No one dreams of being a criminal as a child, John,” she’d whispered into his neck.

“No. But they dream of being free.”)

They wander around Paris all day, taking photos near the Eiffel Tower, and drinking coffee in a street cafe, where Rose’s French is surprisingly fluent. “Not just a pretty face,” she says with a laugh at his expression.

“No. No, you aren’t.”

She mentions that even as a little girl she’d wanted to come to Paris, repeating a story he remembered, the story that had brought them here in the first place.

They spend the night in a hotel, even nicer than the last, key and identification pick-pocketed earlier that day. They watch the sunset through the window, until the Eiffel Tower lights up in the distance. They make use of the practically palatial bath, soaking in a porcelain tub big enough to hold them both and then some. She leans back against him as he runs his hands through her wet hair, and they talk.

"We could quit. Go hide on a beach somewhere. Just do this.” He says it softly, imagining it, sunshine in her hair and on her face. Quiet and soft, peace in the ocean breeze and warm sand.

“Nah. You’d get bored.”

"With you? Never."

"Fine. _I_ would get bored."

"Now that, I believe,” he laughs, cheek pressing against the top of her head. The water sloshes around them, a cradle of warmth ebbing away the stress that's always settled in their shoulders. It isn't an easy life. But it's so much better with two.

Silence stretches between them, until Rose shifts, rotates to hover over him, looking him in the eye. A tiny line pulls between her own eyes, a soft frown of concern on her face.

Her hands slide into his hair, leaving it damp and wild. Seriously, she says, “Do you want to stop?”

He considers, fingers running along her sides without intent, seeking but the comfort of her warm presence. He can see it, the life they could have: quiet, simple, the same place, the same rhythms, day in and day out. The same rumpled bed sheets every morning, the same commute to whatever work they can find. The same mugs to hold their coffee. A home.

The image is enticing, so long as she’s there.

Without her, he thinks, the peace would be stifling.

“I want you with me. Past that…” He shrugs.

“I’m here,” Rose whispers, leaning in to kiss him soft and slow and deep. His fingers tighten around her hips.

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

And then there is no more talking.

 

 

**SIX: _The Bits In Between_**

 

The sun is setting over Rio, but who needs sunlight, when the whole city burns from within? Armed with her Polaroid camera, plastic sunglasses, and a suitcase filled with brightly-colored bikinis, Rose stumbles into the hotel room. It's not as fancy as their last place in Paris, but much cozier — all warm paint and cerulean tile and curtains that flutter in the open window.

She dumps their luggage on the floor and flings herself straight into John's arms, nearly tackling him onto the bed. “Oh my _God_ , ohmygod, ohmygod,” she squeals. “John, it's gorgeous! It's so… colorful, and bright, and… _alive_.”

He grins up into her beaming face, eyes catching on the crinkle of her nose and the suspicious wetness on her eyelashes. “Yeah?” He chuckles. “I'm glad you like it.” Then he leans in closer, whispers in her ear, “Almost a shame we have to rob the place.”

With a giggle, she smacks his shoulder. “No work talk tonight — just Carnival!”

-

Carnival is like nothing either of them have ever seen.

The streets shine with lamps reflected off of windows and off of shiny bodies coated in glistening gold and gemstones. No part of the city is untouched by the parade of opulence and indulgence, no person — local, visitor, or mere vagabond passing through — exempt from the overwhelming beat of the city. It shakes the streets in a rhythm that the singers and musicians and dancers sway to, a sort of discordant synchrony.

It swallows them whole.

Hands threaded, they lose themselves in the crowd. Rose's hair — dark with dye, and uncut after months of travel — is plastered to her neck, sticky with sweat and the scent of spilled beer and wine. John sheds layers with an uncommon quickness, rolling up his sleeves and eventually going bare-chested. He grins when Rose's eyes skim his skin, her fingers quickly following.

Her hands glide over his arms, guiding his fingers to her hips. She’s swinging in time with the samba, and her laughter rises over the beat like a cymbal. Her skin shimmers with sweat and lamplight and euphoria.

He's not sure he's ever seen anything more beautiful, and he wants to tell her so, only then she drags him inside of a nearby bar where a different beat pulses. She orders them drinks. He's certain she has no idea what she's just ordered, and her look of brilliant joy as they're handed two veritable fish bowls of alcohol is enough to make the bartender wave away her attempts at payment.

“Your smile is payment,” he insists.

John agrees. Still, he shoves some bills into what he _hopes_ is a tip jar. It probably isn't.

Rose leans down and drinks deeply from the giant glass, pulling a face. “Strong!” she proclaims, and then choking out a laugh. “Good!” It's stained her lips an even more vibrant red, and when her tongue darts out, his eyes follow.

She pushes his drink toward him, droplets splashing out over the sugared glass rim. “Your turn!”

He drinks deep, and then deeper, because he likes the shocked amusement on her face. He keeps drinking until he's sure his lips are red like hers. His mouth twists into what is probably a garish, almost vampiric smile, but it must not bother her. In seconds, she's yanking him out of his seat and pressing a hot kiss to his lips; his tongue slides out to taste the alcoholic burn she brings. She carries the flavor of fresh guava and spicy tequila, passing it into his mouth like a gift.

And then, they dance again.

-

He wakes up because his arm is numb. And his tongue is fuzzy. And the whole world is spinning at a million miles an hour, and he can feel every bit of it. He grunts, tries to roll over, only to be stopped by a warm body.

A warm body that moans in a very Rose-like way. “ _Wha_?” she manages, mumbling vaguely through what is probably her own staggeringly dry mouth.

“G’morning,” he answers, blinking in the sunlight that drifts through the curtains. When his eyes adjust, he looks over only to see Rose, quite entirely naked and speckled over with paint and glitter. Her hair is mussed in sleep, tangled with messy braids and multicolored ribbons of mysterious origin. His own arm — not the numb one — is curled between her breasts along with ropes of plastic beads. “Oh.”

“Hm?” She rolls toward him, wincing at the unpleasant prickle of blood flow. He knows because he's just beginning to feel it himself — blood rushing about — and not without… consequences. The glitter on her skin catches in the sunlight, sparkling like dewdrops.

When Rose’s eyes flutter open, they widen. (He knows must look a sight — probably as sparkling and wild as her. He's sure he doesn't wear it half so well.) Her glance cuts a trail down his body and back up again, meeting his confused gaze. “Oh.” She grins, pushing him onto his back.

“What the _fuck_ happened?”

She's on her knees, crawling over him before he can think properly about anything at all. The frayed edges of loose ribbons dance over his chest, leaving gooseflesh in their wake.

“I dunno,” she answers, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his collarbone. “But you were crowned king of something.” She deftly reaches over his head, freeing a plastic crown from the curly tangle of his hair. “King of Carnival, perhaps?”

John snorts. “King of Hangovers, more likely. My head _hurts_.”

She makes a pitying noise before pressing another kiss to his skin, now on his stomach. “Poor John. King without a kingdom. Hangover without a cure. We'll have to stay in bed all day.”

“We'll have to _get_ in bed first.” He winces again. “How the hell did we end up on the floor? Where are our clothes?”

Rose's laughter carries from where she sits on her haunches, hovering over his hips, bare skin awash in golden morning light. She glows. It's exactly how he'd thought she'd look, in Paris, in that bathtub, with his foolish dreams of escape.

She interrupts his thoughts. “I have a few ideas.”

“Really?” he says innocently. “Please, do share.”

She does.

-

When they finally make it up to the bed, she curls into his side, hair even more chaotic than it had been upon waking, a leg thrown over his hip. She is suffused with warmth and contentment.

“I love Rio,” she sighs, her hand tangling with his over his bare chest.

“I love you.”

The words come before he can prepare for them. He doesn't have time for his hand to freeze in hers, or for his heart to race. One moment the words aren't there, and the next they are

Just like her appearance in his world. A spot on a map. A light once off, now turned on, shining her inexpressible light into his life.

“I love you, too,” she whispers.

His arm tightens around her. He feels the soft pressure of her lips on his shoulder. And he prays that it will always be like this.

 

 

**SEVEN: _The Golden Hours_**

 

Another day, another beach.

She's been driving him hard, she knows, but it can hardly be helped. Firstly, their job in Rio went a little more… public than they'd expected. But mostly, she's gotten so used to perpetual motion that she can hardly live without it. When he wakes, sluggish and slow, she hurries him along. She pulls out her paper maps, marked over with all the places she wants to go.

“Here next,” she says.

“Anywhere.” It's not a concession. Just a statement of fact, and it makes her chest tighten. How did she ever get so lucky?

As they lay in the sand and the hot sun, he turns to look at her, eyes hidden by a pair of flip-down shades. “Bored yet?”

She shakes her head in an emphatic “no,” and then squints, her nose wrinkling. She isn't telling the truth. He can see it. He laughs.

“You _are_ , aren't you?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “My vagabond girl. You'll be missing this beach in a week, I guarantee it.” And he shoots her a knowing grin, because he's right, and they both know it.

When he smiles like that, like she's the center of the whole universe, she feels like maybe she _could_ stay this way forever — or at least until tomorrow, when their flight leaves. For Dublin.

 

 

**EIGHT: _The Reality of the Situation_**

 

“Rose? We might have made a bit of a miscalculation,” John said, peering around the corner.

“That why I hear footsteps?”

“Mmm. Time to run.” He grabbed her free hand, the other hefting the duffel up from the floor of the office. The safe itself was shut, and the gloves prevented any prints left behind. The problem was the guards.

“Where?!”

Rose’s vehement whisper had a point, he knew. The guards were coming up the hallway from the staircase — a hallway they’d have to access to get to the ground. There was another hallway, dead-ending in a plate glass window. 

He looked back and forth between the hallways, mentally calculating. A fall from this height would hurt — but shouldn’t break anything. _At least, nothing vital._ The footsteps grew louder.

“Rose? I need you to trust me, love.”

Her brow raised, an expression somewhere between questioning and slightly insulted. “Of course I trust you. What’s your plan?”

“Out the window.”

Rose didn’t have time to protest, as he started off down the hallway, moving quickly as he could manage without letting go of her. They pitched themselves forward until they were running full tilt, hand in hand, toward the window at the end.

Crashing through the barrier felt strange, like all momentum stopped then shattered, and they were pitching down, down, down. As gravity shifted and the sensation of falling took root, a moment of sick weightlessness seized him, holding them between two planes. On instinct, he pulled Rose close to him, twisting in mid-air so that she landed atop him.

Pain exploded up his back, white-hot and blade sharp.

A moment stretched over them both as they inhaled. Then, time reasserted itself over them with a vengeance at the sound of voices overhead. Rose shoved herself up, hissing as she did, before offering him one half shredded glove.

He grabbed hold, and they ran — her holding one arm around her middle, and him trying desperately to keep up, pain lancing through his leg and the wet feel of blood oozing along his back. The car came into view, yards away, then feet, then they were there, her fingers scrabbling at the door—

“Other side!” His hand burrowed in his coat looking for the keys — holding them out to her with a shaking hand.

She grabbed them without question, throwing the duffle in the floorboard as he toppled into the backseat, wincing at the blade sharp pain again. Her eyes were on his, in the rearview mirror, but he shook his head. The movement made him dizzy, a swimming feeling sweeping over him like a wave. They didn’t have time for this — once they were away, fine. Once they were safe.

Rose understood, she always did. So she drove.

-

“Come on, lean on me.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, but his voice said otherwise, soft and pulled tight.

She kicked the car door shut with one foot, wincing at the pull of the fabric of her pants over her knee.

“You’re not. John, we fell out of a window!”

“I was there, I do remember it. Particularly the landing.” His smile held none of it’s usual comfort, turned instead flash-paper fragile by clenched teeth and shallow breath.

Her ribs ached, a dull sensation blooming into a pain that throbbed every time she inhaled without the benefit of adrenaline pushing her forward.

“Come on, let’s just… up the stairs for a start.” _It’s not far,_ she thought, _I can make it. I can handle it._

Except she couldn’t. She winced with every step, feeling the pressure as they moved and John’s extra weight.

“Rose, let go. I can make it up the stairs on my own.”

“John—”

“I can make it. Don’t worry about me.”  He set his right foot on the first tread.

Rose sighed, and they picked their way up the stairs, slowly, carefully, and surely conspicuous to anyone who might be watching them. He favored his right side as he climbed, Rose noted, clinging to the railing as he went. She pulled herself along behind him, knees screaming, denim bloody from where she’d ground glass into her knees while rising to run. A small price compared to the bruising she can feel all around her torso.

They finally made it to the landing, crossing beneath a single bulb still lit, and the damage was clear. She knew she looked a mess, ruined gloves and bloody knees, but the back of John’s jacket was the worst by far. Blood seeped into the fabric, glittering shards of glass still imbedded in it. Beautiful, in a strange macabre way, the way the light caught them, but horrifying. Like a grisly, stained glass window. She felt her mouth go dry at the sight, her mind tumbling back over their run to the car, how he’d told her to drive, how he’d winced while they ran.

 _I need you to trust me,_ he’d said.

He’d known. He’d _known_ he’d end up bloody and broken, but he’d done it anyway, and for what?

Fatigue washed over her like a wave, the last of the adrenaline seeping from her bones. Bloody, beaten and bruised, they shuffled inside the motel room, dim and cold and blessedly still. As John hobbled towards the bed, pausing to swipe one of their towels out of the suitcase, Rose leaned back against the door, head tilted back as she breathed, the moment of silence and stillness sinking over them.

“Fuck,” he swore vehemently, muffled by the bunched covers from that afternoon. 

And with that the bubble popped.

“Spread out your arms,” she said, stepping away from the door and beginning to slide off her clothes. No sense getting blood on the bed. She shed her shirt and pants, leaving behind only her underthings and a mottling of still-forming bruises.

John made a muzzy noise of agreement and did as she asked, without question.

“Sorry if this hurts—” she said, slowly working his arm out of one sleeve.

“Can’t hurt worse than it already does.” His words were still muffled as he pressed his face into the comforter.

She nodded, took a breath, and peeled the punctured, bloody fabric away. John yelped, fingers twisting in the sheets and Rose couldn’t stop herself from muttering apologies. But it was no good; some of the shards went deep, through the blue sweater he wore beneath the jacket.

Slowly, painstakingly, she removed the layers, until the jacket was free, leaving his back a pale blue expanse of wool broken by bloody tears in the fabric. She swallowed and stared, hand hovering over his back—

“That bad?”

“Worse.” She could hardly force the word out of her sickly dry throat. The taste of bile sat heavy on her tongue. “I should… I need the tweezers. And bandages. And… scissors.”

A beat of silence passed between them, thick with tension and worry.

“What?” John’s voice was soft as he turned his head to look at her as best he could.

“I’m gonna have to cut this sweater off you.”

“Rose, no—”

“I’m not arguing with you about this. I’m sorry, but the sweater doesn’t matter, _you_ do. It’ll be easier to get the glass out if I just… cut it off.”

She didn’t wait for a response, instead pushing herself off the bed to go gather what she needed. It only took a moment, but it felt like an eternity as her hands shook and she nearly dropped the tweezers in the sink twice. When she finally laid everything out on the corner of the towel on the bed, she simply sat there for a long moment, holding the scissors.

“Rose?”

The tension and pain rolled off of him in palpable waves. She swallowed, looking down at blood soaked wool and exhaled.

“I’m fine. Just… don’t want to nick you with these.”

“I still think we could—”

“John, you’d have to stand up. And even then — some of this glass...  It’ll work out better this way.”

She slipped the scissors along the fabric — cutting the torso of it up each side before carefully working around the arms.

John mumbled something into the mattress as she leaned over him. She frowned and set the scissors down to ruffle a hand through his hair gently.

“What’s that?”

“You looked good in this sweater,” he repeated, turning so his mouth wasn’t buried in the sheets beneath him.

Rose couldn’t help the giggle that grew and tumbled out at that remark. Soft and groggy and completely without pretense.

“Lucky you have another one, then, isn’t it?”

He hummed in response as she went back to work.

-

She spent nearly an hour cleaning him up, including the time it took for her to splint his left leg as best she could, if only so he wouldn’t hurt it anymore. Gradually, his head made its way into her lap, nuzzling against her bare leg as she leaned over him, his fingers stroking over her hip. She exhaled, breath shaking as she looked over the gauze she’d managed to tape to his back. The first round had bled through, forcing her to change it out. The tweezers and antiseptic and crumpled gauze from earlier lay on another towel, spread the floor beside her. (She thanked John’s massive Douglas Adams obsession for ensuring that they always traveled with their own towels. In her mind's eye, saw his wide grin, his laughing mouth saying, “A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry, Rose.” She wanted to cry.)

“Alright. I think… I think that’s it. You should—”

“Rose?”

For the first time since the car, she looked him in the eye.

His brow was furrowed, and for a moment, Rose thought he needed more painkillers — but as her hand reached out, he caught it, shaking his head. She swallowed against the lump in her throat at that look, the ineffable tenderness in his gaze, and pulled her hand back in toward her body.

He pushed himself up on one arm wincing, but she knew what he wanted — to look her in the eye properly. She scooted back, pillow shoving against the headboard as she did, wiggling her way to the edge of the bed so she could stretch out beside him and face him.

She wasn’t sure how long they laid there, just drinking in each other. Long enough that the tears she’d fought back for the past hour spilled over, silent and wet. No words could contain what she felt in this moment, the fear and the worry and the bone deep tiredness that sank over her like a weighted blanket. She closed her eyes.

-

In the end, it’s the feel of his thumb brushing against the bridge of her nose that shakes the words loose from where they’d grown roots inside her. Her eyes flutter open.

“I knew it wasn’t safe. But I didn’t… I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

His eyes still hold that same softness- that same comfort that she longs to slide into and wrap herself in.  “Like what?”

She exhales, shaking at the velvety timbre of his whisper. “Helpless. I haven’t felt helpless in… so long.”

“You aren’t helpless, Rose. You never were.”

“That’s a pretty lie, but I’ve told enough of them to recognize those.”

John shakes his head vehemently, reaching down from where her hand had fallen against the sheets to twine his fingers with hers.

“No. It’s not. You’re anything but helpless.”

She brings their hands up, still locked together, her fingertips curling over top and around his. It’s a distraction for a moment, the feel of his hand warm beneath hers, knowing he’s watching the way her hands move, never quite breaking contact. But it’s not enough to let go of the feeling that knots her stomach.

“If I’m not, why do you try so hard to protect me?” Her tone doesn’t accuse, but her fingers loosen and go still. “Why don’t you trust me?”

She didn’t mean for that question to creep out, exhaled like the doubt that lingered in the darkest corner of her mind.

John swallows, and closes his eyes. And Rose knows, if they weren’t lying down, if he weren’t nursing a probably-fractured leg and a back sliced half to ribbons, he’d be pacing, staring at his feet.

She loves him, that’s not changed, and won’t. But she needs to know.  The silence stretches between them — tense and uncomfortable and she can’t stand it. Sighing, she begins to pull her hand back.

His fingers thread through hers, gripping her with an intensity that makes her gasp.

“I do trust you. More than I’ve trusted anyone in my life.”

“Not enough to take care of—”

“Enough to take care of me. You are so much more important than I am. I would do anything to make sure you’re safe. You—” he cuts himself off and grabs her other hand so that both hands are twined together.  “The universe pales in comparison to you.”

The sincerity in his voice is breathtaking and she pushes herself forward to kiss him softly, hands still joined.

Perhaps it’s not enough, but she believes him. After all, she’d do anything for him, too.

-

She can hear him — his hands sliding, reaching across the sheets as she slides out of the bed. But she can’t sleep, not right now.  Too many emotions war inside her. Relief, the lingering remnants of fear, and beneath it all, the deep well of love for him that sometimes surprises even herself.

“Rose?”

“Go back to sleep,” she whispers to the dark, but he’s not awake to hear her.

She can tell when he falls back into sleep, even without looking at him in the dim light from the bathroom. She swallows harshly, and goes to work. The towel had saved the bed from being soaked, but the towel itself is still sticky with hardening blood. She sets it to soak in the bathroom sink. Then she begins shoving clothes back into the suitcases that hold their lives, and tries not to think about the bloody thumbprint on the stack of Polaroids. The gloves and his jacket are a loss, but she can’t leave them here, she knows. She gathers the scraps of evidence and tosses them in an empty garbage bag, tying it off and setting it beside the door. She won’t leave things pristine, that’s suspicious too, but the gauze can’t be left in the trash and the sink will need wiped down and the antiseptic packed away and—

Rose blows out a breath, pressing her palms against the wooden edge of the dresser. The edge bites against her skin, enough to keep her from spiraling into all of the things that needed doing without actually doing them.

“One step at a time,” she whispers, turning to look at John, his face soft and slack in sleep.

“Stick to the plan.”

-

The room looks almost clean now, the suitcases already stowed in the trunk. They’ll keep running, one step further and one step faster, but for now, what Rose needs most is sleep. She looks at the bed, and it practically calls to her: John asleep, hair ruffled, glasses on the sideboard. It’s almost as if the last four hours hadn’t happened.

She lays atop the covers, content enough to just close her eyes and drift off.

“You’ll get cold like that.”

His words, heavy with sleep, run together. Rose can’t help the smile they bring though.

“I’ll be fine.”

His eyes are still closed, but he lifts the arm that’s above the comforter slightly, pulling the edge up in wordless communication. He wants her close, wants her to join him. So she does; she slips under the cover and into his arms. Her fingers trail over the edges of the bandages, and for an instant the fear seeps back in. She inhales sharply, the prickle of tears trying to form in the corners of her eyes feeling sharp as the glass that’s wrapped in the ruined jacket down in the car.

“Come ‘ere,” he murmurs and lets the weight of his arm fall over her back. It’s soothing, the presence that reminds her he’s here. That they’re both alive. That they’ll run another day.

 

 

**NINE: _The Long Road Home_**

 

The drive out of Dublin is quiet. It was a risk to spend the day waiting in the motel, but they were too exhausted to leave during the night, and too risk-aware to try leaving during daylight hours. So, it’s the moon that lights their way.

Rose is driving, after insisting that he couldn't with his leg in such bad shape. So, he sleeps, stretched across the bench seat with his head in her lap. Her hands shake on the steering wheel.

She's always felt safe in his car, from that first day. Flaking blue paint and rust at the edges. It's been the closest thing she's had to home in a long time, and as she steers it out of town, she's once again relieved that they haven't had to scrap it, or abandon it in some lot. They change the plates on it, but mostly, the dull paint and dated design help it blend in anywhere. It's their home; old and junky, but theirs.

Tonight, she wants to drive until the sun comes up, and pull over, and park, and sleep in her favorite place on earth.

“Where do we go now?” she asks him. But he doesn't answer — he's out cold, whether from the pain meds or exhaustion. It makes her heart ache in a way she’s only felt in the last 24 hours. In a way she hopes she doesn't have to feel again.

She's never been a protective person. Her instincts were always to fly low, remain unseen. Work at a diner. Try to keep the boss’ hands off her between shifts. Pay rent on time and try not to make a fuss. Hide the bruises. Hide the yearning. Just hide.

But when she glances down at her silent passenger — his glasses askew on his face, his eyelashes smudgy and dark in the moonlight, deep and dark bruises of exhaustion underneath, his hair ruffled in sleep and curls flattened against her denims — she feels like she just might tear apart the world for him.

She can practically hear his voice.

_Don't you dare. I'm not worth it._

_Follow the plan._

But he's asleep. And she can't bear one more minute of this vicious northern cold.

And anyway, he probably won't wake until after they get there — back home.

 

 

**TEN: _The Plan_**

 

“So, we just walk in, pretend to be wedding guests, break into their vault, and leave with the diamond? I have to say, it doesn’t sound that complicated.”

“Yes, well, _you’re_ not doing it in heels.”

“Ah, but _I_ don’t have your legs.”

“More’s the pity. Now then, got your gloves?”

“My Rose… where would I be without you?”

“Prison, probably. Let’s be off, flatterer.”

 

 

**ELEVEN, PART 1: _The Rule_**

 

They have one rule: they won’t hurt anyone.

 _But there’s always an exception, with a rule like that,_ John reasons, swirling his champagne around its glass. _Maybe it’s an accident — a papercut on the finger of a careless bank teller; a badly-timed shove as they duck past a suspicious police officer; maybe some light hearing damage, if Rose gets a serious shout going._

 _Or maybe,_ he considers, setting the glass down, _it’s not an accident at all. Maybe it’s a man at a party — a hulking dimwit with more money than brains, who appears to be backing Rose into a corner — just begging to get his nose broken._

 _Yes,_ he decides, fists already clenching, as he sees the man’s hand land on her shoulder. _There’s always an exception._

 

**ELEVEN, PART 2: _The Exception_**

 

The plan is simple. (All of Rose's plans are devilishly simple, and this is nothing if not her plan.) Attend the wedding, slip away, sneak into the vault with the passcode he’d acquired last week, steal the diamond, and leave.

He watches, untouched flute of champagne in hand, as Rose flits around the crowds, doing what she often did, giving everyone in the room a sense of her presence and a firm feeling that a girl that pretty and nice couldn’t possibly be involved with anything bad. She shimmers in a golden dress, simple but not uncommonly so in this celebration of excess.

(”Too much?” She’d asked, pulling it off a rack and holding it against herself.

“It’s perfect,” he said, already imagining it on the floor after.)

Tonight, he plays her shy counterpart, quiet and observant and stupid in love with the girl with a smile like sunshine. It isn’t too far from the truth. It’s easy to convince people of the truth, after all.

It’s gorgeous to watch her work, to see the bite in her smile as people buy into her heiress persona. (”I feel dirty every time I pretend to care about that shit,” she’d say later, accent rolling thick off her tongue, flopped back on the bed wearing nothing but a sneer.) She smiles, her veneer no long _papier_ \- _mâché_ frail, but a pristine porcelain mask that she wears like a weapon, giving them what they expect.

She catches his eye and nods once and he smiles back.

Until he catches sight of her shadow.

The man is taller than either of them, and he trails her, three steps behind _—_ staying between Rose and the exit. A stone settles in John’s stomach, and he follows sooner than they’d discussed, champagne abandoned on a nearby table without a thought.

He rounds the corner and finds the scene he’d dreaded _—_ Rose at the end of the hallway, the tall man hovering over her _—_ and it’s all he can do to keep himself back and out of sight.

“Come on, don’t you know who I am?” the man slurs at her, just unevenly enough to be unpredictable.

“I’m here with my boyfriend, please just…” she says, tone even and flat.

“He’s not here right now.”

John resists the urge to snort, sneaking closer, keeping to the shadows. He reminds himself: Rose isn’t helpless. In all their time doing this, Rose has handled herself. She’s dealt with scarier things than a drunken boy thinking she could be bought.

“Don’t touch me.” She says firmly, pushing him away, but he doesn’t budge.

They’d only ever had one rule when they started doing this. Easy to make and easy to keep and he’d never had a reason to question it until this very moment.

(He remembers her voice, all those years ago, in the car as they put distance between them and the place they came from. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said, hand pressed against the dark bruise on her cheek.

“Neither do I.”

“Good.” She’d stared out at the road for a long moment, “I don’t want to take anything from people like… “

“Like us?”

“No. People more honest than us,” she said, before laughing. “Never thought I could say that I wouldn’t feel guilty, but I don’t _—_ not really.”

He didn’t reply, simply taking her hand in the center of the bench seat as they slipped farther into the dark.)

No harm. If it can’t be done through guile, they don’t do it. It’s been easy to keep that promise. Until he sees this man reach for Rose. Rose who said “no.” Rose who pushed him away.

He doesn’t even realize he’s moving until he’s jumped the man _—_ pulling him away with strength that belies his significantly smaller frame and punching him square in the nose. Once. Twice and then a third time for good measure.

“John!” Rose is there, pulling him away. The bigger man stumbles back, eyes livid.

It takes only a moment to realize that John’s mistake was bigger than either of them could have known. Because this isn’t any drunken moron with too much money and no respect. No, this is the groom’s brother.

-

Which is how Rose and John find themselves in the security office, her wrists brushing against his as she works a hairpin into the lock of the handcuffs. She’s always been a dab hand at unlocking them without the key, he knows from experience. It just isn’t usually on _herself_.

The security guard seemed to dismiss them after ensuring they were handcuffed together, focusing on the bank of computer monitors. His job tonight is to protect the vault, not babysit punch-drunk guests who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Anyway, his boss’ idiot son probably deserved it; he's never much liked the bastard. His colleagues, gone back to their rotations and reporting in frequently, are of more pressing interest.

“What do you say to that beach now?” John asks, head leaning back against Rose’s fallen curls for just a moment. “Told you you'd miss it.”

He hears the dull snick of the cuffs coming free and smiles.

“Quiet!” The idiot guard says without moving or even looking up, a mistake if John’s ever seen one, as Rose turns to unlock his hands. They obey, but only because they know how to work silently. His fingers cup to catch the loose cuffs as they come free before letting her lift them from him with barely a whisper of movement. Rose grins a tongue touched smile as she tucks the pin back into her hair, and lays both pairs of cuffs side by side on the couch.

He offers her his hand. She takes it, and with twin grins, they run. Like they’ve always run, hard and fast and without a look back.

They’re in the dark, driving away, when she finally responds to his question. They didn't get the diamond, but it doesn't matter. Rose is looking at the ripped panel of her dress, and the light bruising around her wrists and his own. Her voice is quiet. “The beach sounds… heavenly. Maybe I can get used to the quiet.”

But not just yet.

 

 

**TWELVE, PART 1: _The Catch_**

 

He’d told her to run, shoved her away and stood like a barrier between her and the police. And it had worked. He’d meant for her to leave, to take the duffel to the car, use the keys he’d shoved into her hands and drive away.

“That’s never gonna happen,” she mutters shoving the duffel in the trunk.

She stares at her reflection in the rearview mirror and plans. She’s not sure how long she sits there, cracked leather of the steering wheel beneath her palms _—_ mind running over everything that had happened that night.

-

_“See, easy!” He’d said, placing the last of the cash into the duffel._

_“And for your next trick?” She teased, bumping her hip against his as he zipped it._

_“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps a disappearing act? Appropriate for a show like this, don’t you think?”_

_“Mmm. Perhaps.” She ran her hands through his hair, still shorter than normal, but long enough to grip nicely. The sensation wasn’t as nice through the black leather gloves they both always wore on jobs, but needs must._

_“Rose,” he half-reprimanded, half-whined, nose brushing against hers in that way that he always did when he was so close to giving in and kissing her but knew he shouldn’t._

_“Yes, I know, you don’t have to remind me. I have plans for you later.”_

_“I’ll bet you do.”_

_She grabbed the duffel, sauntering away with a swing in her hips put on entirely for show._

_They nearly made it to the exit before things went wrong. The single night guard turning a corner just a moment too early, catching sight of them, and a police car passing at the same moment they came bursting out of the back of the bank._

_“Run!” John shouted, scrabbling at his pockets for the car keys and tossing them to her and she ran beside him. She caught them out of instinct, fingers closing around the fob and chain, metal biting her palm._

_“I’m not—” She started to protest, but he cut her off sharply._

_“Yes, you are. Go.”_

_Then he was gone, pivoting on his heel and running away from her and Rose didn’t know what to do but what he said._

_-_

She leans forward, folding herself up tightly, her forehead against the backs of her hands. She knows there was always danger, that this life wasn’t easy or simple or without sacrifice. But the thought of John in handcuffs, shoved around by the police while she sits here — free and clear — roils bile over her tongue. Swallowing it down, she drives, all the way to the motel.

The sight of the little room, with its dingy wallpaper and dirty carpet, maps and suitcases on the wooden dresser turns her throat dry. She thinks of the money in the car. “You know what to do,” his voice, soft and low and serious, echoes in her mind.

She _should_ pack everything. Throw it in the trunk, break up the money in another motel in another town — give some away, spend some, tuck the last away just in case. Instead, she stands against the closed door of the room, glad it’s a by-the-night establishment that asks no questions.

A long minute passes as she stands there, breathing out in a long gust, stuck between doing something, and running. She turns, forehead pressing against the wood of the door, fingers half wrapped around the doorknob — thinking of going to the police station — she knows where it is and how to get there in under twenty minutes. She could turn herself in.

They could plan together inside; they always worked better together, after all.

But she can’t shake the vision of John’s face, eyes sharp despite the worry in his tone, just before he turned away from her. The steel in his gaze was a command. So rarely issued, and impossible to ignore.

She has work to do. She turns away from the doorknob, and shuts her eyes against the vision of John behind bars.

She spreads the city map on the bed, looking at the surroundings of the station and tries to find a way in; first by lamplight, and then by sunlight as dawn shifts into day bright enough for the sun to penetrate the thin curtains. By then her eyes are bloodshot and her head is heavy, but she can’t stop. If she stops now, it’s giving up.

She doesn’t stop. She pauses.

“I can’t do this,” she whispers under the steam of the shower, hot enough to burn. The phrase bubbles up inside her, a negative mantra, one that she can’t squash until she’s leaning against tile, tears running down her face hot and ugly and pained. The water abruptly goes cold, and she stands in the stream, the shock of it against her skin sharp and biting. It hurts, but the pain gives her some clarity and pulls her back into herself.

Maybe she can’t do this — not the way they usually do, where John proposes a mad scheme and they laugh and walk it back until it’s realistic. But she can plan. And sneak. She’s done it before, so long ago it feels like a lifetime. She’s avoided beatings and bruises with enough foresight. The stakes are higher now.

(In her mind’s eye she can see John frowning at her.

“No they aren’t,” the ghost in her head says clearly enough that she can almost feel his hand against her cheek.

Even in her own mind, he won’t let her think he’s more important than she is.)

It doesn’t matter if she thinks she can do this. She has to. She refuses to lose him.

-

It takes her a week to come up with a plan. A week of a stone growing in the pit of her stomach. A week of fighting off the voice inside her screaming at her to go — that she can’t waste anymore time.

The first day, she drinks cold coffee with a grimace while pouring over a library microfiche, looking at blueprints and sketching them out for herself in a tiny notebook. She finds so many ways that won’t work. Double enclosures and checkpoints abound and it gives her a headache after a few hours of staring.

Prisons, Rose decides, are more trouble than they’re worth.

She shakes her head when the librarian asks her if she needs assistance, internally giggling at the face they would make if she said, _Well, if you have any books on prison breaks_... She’s not foolish enough to make even a joke, but she has to find her amusement where she can.  She tries not to think about John all alone in a cell.

She spends her evening eating Chinese food from a carton — looking at the city map and her blueprint sketches. There’s a plan in them somewhere, between the station and the city and the prison. She balances the box on her sock-covered knee with one hand as she leans forward to grab her notebook. The sleeve of John’s red sweater falls over her hand, persistently drooping from where she’d shoved it up to her elbow earlier.

She lets the notebook balance on the knee of the leg that’s tucked under her, as she goes back to eating, wrinkling her nose when one of the noodles drops off her chopsticks to the paper below.

There was no way to get him out from the outside.

So how did she get in, then?

She spends two days contemplating that question while she packs up and prepares to leave the motel. She couldn’t imitate a police officer or guard; it was too obvious and too difficult to get hold of the uniform regardless.  So then, who else could she be? She drives in loops around the prison, where she knows they’ve moved him by now, and it’s in one of these that inspiration strikes. She sees the nice suits of the lawyers who go in.

 _That_ , she thinks, _is a uniform I can get_.

 

**TWELVE, PART 2: _The Release_**

 

It takes another three days of prep before she’s ready to go forward with the plan. She spends those nights sleeping in the car, running over the details as she stares at the fabric-covered ceiling, using John’s sweater as a pillow. (Her maps and notes and blueprints burned in the sink before she left, dwindling to ash as she kept the window propped open to let the smoke out. Her mind drifted with it, out of the window and away from this place.)

She drives away to buy herself a smart skirt suit and a briefcase, one with a hidden compartment, then to another town for the tools she needs, and then to one last to make altered copies of the business card she’d stolen from the public defender's office the morning she left. (It was frighteningly easy, but then, Rose supposed they must have all sorts in and out of there; why would they notice a single quiet blonde?)

The altered cards take most of an afternoon, but they’re cheap and the teen manning the cash register is more occupied with the magazine she’s reading than the face of the girl fiddling with cardstock in the printer. Nothing jams, and the knot of tension eases as she starts the drive back.

It turns out she needn’t have bothered with the second step, because when she walks up to the prison saying the public defender’s office sent her, they don’t ask for identification. Her hair is pulled into a sleek chignon, a pen holding it together, because it was what she had on hand. She waits, the guards moving around as they get John from holding. Her fingers clench and unclench around the handle of the briefcase as she walks herself through the plan again.

Get in. See John. Give him the tools. Tell him where to meet her. Wait.

Simple and easy to remember. She just has to remain calm.

“What happened to the other guy?” the guard asks her casually, as he lifts up the lid of the briefcase.

There’s nothing to find except papers and a manila folder she’d stuffed with copy paper and clipped with paper clips. He doesn’t open the folder.

Rose shrugs, schooling her face into a neutral mask. “I don’t know, I just go where they send me. Maybe they thought I could get him to talk.”

The guard grunts, a noise she thinks means agreement, as he snaps the case shut and hands it back to her. She watches as he crosses over to unlock the door leading to the interview room. There’s a CCTV camera in the corner, but that’s the least of her worries. 

John’s face when he sees her, concerns her far more than the fixed lens she knows how to avoid.

He doesn’t say anything, not until the door is closed behind her.

“Why are you here?” He asks, angling his face so the camera can’t catch the movement of his lips.

“You know why.”

 _I told you to leave_ , he mouths, his face serious and blank as she takes a seat across from him at the table.  “I don’t have anything more to say,” he adds aloud, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening in.

“Well that’s unfortunate,” Rose says, attempting to portray an ice-queen to any security room voyeur even as her stomach turns. She sets the briefcase on the table, angling it just so, to block the edge of the hidden compartment being revealed in a moment.

She pulls out the manila folder and slides it over to him, watching his brow crinkle in confusion. “Review that for me, would you?”

He reaches out, slides the folder toward himself and flips it open, slowly flipping through the blank pages until he finds the one in the center. At the heart of the folder is the plan, in all it’s deceptively simple glory.

She helps him save himself.

The paper contains a sketch of the central wall of a cell, an arrow drawn to a panel beneath the bed. It’ll be a tight squeeze through vents for him, but he’s been in tighter spots, she knows.  There’s also a note — one that Rose wrote and rewrote a dozen times.

_I’m never gonna leave you. I want you safe. So be careful. And quick. Tonight, preferably._

_The vents are open_ — _turn at first left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, and drop down. Go past the bins,  and take the fifth door on your left. The_ _blue_ _door, not the red._

 _Meet me at the abandoned lot behind that coffee shop_ — _the one with the graffiti of the golden eyes._

He reads it and looks at her curiously — watching as she palms a screwdriver up the sleeve of her suit coat, an action blocked by the raised lid of the briefcase.

“Well?” Her eyes give away nothing.

“Seems reasonable enough.” He nods once. Then his eyes shift and his expression softens. It’s an expression Rose doesn’t dare think about at this moment. If she does the mask of professionalism and carelessness will absolutely fall. She’s spent too long worrying and planning to ruin things now because she couldn’t keep a lid on her own feelings.

“Are you certain you have nothing to add in your defense?”

His brow furrows, and then he seems to read between the lines, seeing the question she can’t ask. His fingers curl into themselves and she knows if she reached across the table, he’d hold her hand in his.

“I’m absolutely certain. Anything that happened was my fault alone.”

She exhales through her nose, not surprised by the response. They’d talk about this when he was free — talk about his tendency to protect her, keep her from harm, even to the detriment of his own health. She can’t help thinking back a few short months, to the sound of his back hitting concrete with a thud, the shine of blood mixed with crushed glass. His injured leg and back were fully healed, apparently alongside his protective instincts.

She carefully circles the table, heels clacking on the floor as she goes to stand beside him. “I promise you, Mr. Smith, you’ll have the best defense we can provide.” She lets the screwdriver fall silently into his lap, watching as he tucks it away.

“I’m sure I will if you’re on the team, ma’am.” He grins up at her, and she can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes at his smile.

She packs everything up, careful to keep her face straight as he smirks at her — he knows full well what that look does to her, but she fights down a blush admirably. She might not be able to tell him off for it now, but she will soon. Very soon.

-

The day drags by, leaving her feeling frayed and worried even after shedding her disguise for the sweater she’d been wearing off and on the past week. She considers the idea of going to the laundromat, spending time mindlessly watching clothes tumble around for a few hours, but the idea of shedding the comfort the sweater gives her makes the knot of tension pull tighter. Instead, she buys herself a coffee and lingers in the tiny play park on the edge of the town, sitting on empty swings and staring into the middle distance.

She only moves to the abandoned lot after dark, parking the car on the far side and leaving John a change of clothes in the backseat. Now all that’s left for her is to wait.

She’s never been good at the waiting. She thinks of all the days they’ve spent making waiting something else, filling up hours with the press of skin and the slickness of sweat between them. She thinks of the hushed conversations about what they both want from the future.

Her fingers clench and unclench around the steering column until she has to leave the car because the air is thick with memories and uncertainty. She waits under the graffiti instead the night air cold against her skin where she’s rucked up the sleeves of the sweater one more time.

Rose doesn’t know how long she stands there, running her fingers over the fabric pilled from hours and days of wear. She loses herself in the feeling and texture, so much so she almost misses the sound of soft footsteps over gravel.

John comes into view, looking tired and drawn in the dim moonlight, and Rose feels the knot of tension that has been her constant friend this past week vanish. She takes one step, then two, until she’s running full tilt at him so she can meet him sooner. He’s not close enough, not yet, she thinks.

They crash together like tides on the shore. It’s almost violent, the embrace they share, both exhausted and wrung out now clinging to one another. He’s saying something, whispering words into her hair but she can’t hear them over her tears. She pulls her head back from their tangled embrace, and he follows, arms clenched tight around her.

“Stay,” he says, grip on her so strong she’ll have bruises tomorrow. But she’s holding on just as tightly, unwilling to let him go, even for a moment.

“Always.”

She leans back in and kisses him. It’s more than words could ever say, hot and hard and desperate. His mouth is open under hers and they give and take equally, trying to take root in one another, to find the ground that’s always been between them solid and steady. She feels him backing her up, looking for something to lift her against and oh, she wants, she wants, she wants.

“Wait,” she breathes, pulling her mouth away from his. “Car. We should — car.”

She can’t manage more of a complete thought than that, her mind still screaming with his presence and the feel of his skin against hers. He understands anyway. Their hands fall together as they run, fingers entwined. It’s barely any distance really to get there, but it feels like miles.

She finds herself shoving the carefully folded set of clothes she’d left out for him to the floorboard as she pulls him into the backseat with her. They should wait until after they’re farther away, safer, but she can’t. And based on the feel of him as his hips press her down into the leather seat, neither can he. They lock eyes in the darkened car and she nods once, her hands already drifting to the button of her jeans.

It’s hot, messy and desperate, a metaphor for their lives even, if she was given to being poetic about such things. She kisses him hard as he presses inside, trying to pull him closer, and closer still. It’s not close enough. She’s not sure it ever will be again. Her hands trace over what she can reach of his chest and over his shoulder to his back, before burying one hand in his hair and holding on. His mouth is at her neck as his hips rock in a rhythm that’s chasing, motion as desperate as her heart feels. She’s not sure she can match his fall, but he knows her, and knows what she needs and so he works a hand between them and gives it to her.

They let the tide carry them away, clinging to each other the whole time. The world narrows to nothing but the sweaty stickiness of the leather under her back and the warmth of John above her. There’s nothing else that matters. It’s him and her and them together, clinging to the skin of an empty world tilting too fast for them to keep up. They lay like that for a while, coming down from the high.

-

By morning, they find themselves somewhere new, somewhere quiet, overlooking a lake vista. The sun barely peeks out over the horizon as they stand on the decking of the cafe looking out. The terrace is empty in the early morning light, a blessing and a curse all at once. There’s nothing to stop them from talking, no nosy eavesdroppers to worry about.

Silence stretches between them, both feeling emotionally bruised in the wake of the last week. But as much comfort as they always find together, the words need saying.

“No more.”

To his credit, he doesn’t ask. They stand shoulder to shoulder looking at the rising sun, and he says nothing as she shakes her head.

“I’ve let a lot go. Because I love you. Because you’re all I have. But the truth is, I can’t… I can’t do this without you. And I don’t want to try. So it’s together or not at all. Promise?”

He nods and slips behind her to hold her from behind, his chin resting on her shoulder. “I promise. Wherever you want, Rose. You know that.”

She leans back against him slightly. “It’s not where. Anywhere is fine as long as you’re with me. No more protecting me.”

He kisses her cheek softly before looking out at the sunrise again. “I know, love. I know.”

 

 

**THIRTEEN: _The Rome Job_**

 

They wandered the continent, taking on only small jobs — ones with almost no chance of going wrong. Weeks passed as they wandered aimlessly, looking for an equilibrium that was hard-won, the knife-edge of their lives glinting at them sharply. Slowly it dulled, but they still spent their nights wrapped around each other, looking for comfort and grounding in the feeling of skin on skin. During the day, John tried to stay close to Rose, reluctant to let her too far out of sight as seven cold, lonely days lingered behind his eyelids.

It was easy to watch Rose — her smile as she took in the scenery through the viewfinder of her camera. She lingered beside him, shoulders brushing as she lined up her shots and threading her fingers through his when she looped the camera back over her shoulder, as they moved through the European countryside, holding up petrol stations and bank branches that were normally too small to bother with.

The job in Rome came as a chance to return to their usual haunts; an art gallery and a single painting in a city filled with art and history. There was already a buyer lined up, and they’d been contracted by an old friend of Rose’s — “a con man with a heart of gold,” she’d said. A safe enough job, but with still with an adrenaline-spiking element of danger. An element they’d been silently avoiding. Rose had nodded slowly as he brought it up, as though she wasn’t certain, but had protested the idea that they didn’t have to.

The morning they disembarked the train in Rome felt crisp and bright, the spring sunshine beaming down on them as they walked side by side, luggage in hand — their entire lives packed into two bags. They mutually agreed to spend a few days as tourists, mapping the area around the gallery through aimless wanderings and sightseeing. They spent two days casing the area in the mornings and turning to the historical areas by lunch, only to spend the rest of their days following random side-streets and buying street food and getting swept up in the city.

They walked past the Colosseum, taking photographs in front of it, all without being more than an arms length apart. They wandered the ruins of the Forum and never once discussed the heist or anything other than history, art, and who defined such things. They licked ice cream cones while sitting at the Trevi Fountain, watching people making wishes and tossing their coins into the clear blue water.

“Want to make a wish?” John invited, grinning as he tugged on Rose’s hand.

Instead, her fingers slipped out of his and wrapped around her camera, lining up a shot. He glanced over toward where her lens was focused, the angle marred by the splashes of an unwieldy little child who had dunked their hand in to reach for coins. When the film slid out, she barely gave it time to develop before sliding it into her backpack, along with the others.

Then her eyes turned to him, their sparkle muted in the sun-drenched courtyard, but a smile still peeking through. “I’ve already made mine. I’m living it.” Her hand slid into his, and squeezed.

Every so often, Rose fell quiet, her expression shifting to something far off and unfocused, her hand falling away from his, but she always came back to herself when he took her hand.

The streets of Rome were beautiful and distracting enough, he supposed. The press of the old and the new against one another like the pages of a book certainly provided inspiration. Rose took dozens of photographs, all neatly tucked in her bag for safekeeping. They collected an ever growing pile of memories of a place where change steeped in the very stones. It occurred to him that the camera had remained steadfast on her shoulder as they’d plotted their escape route, only pulling it down once they were surrounded by real tourists.

It was strange, but John was sure she’d tell him what was bothering her in time.

Looking back, it was appropriate that this was the place where things changed.

-

They wake the morning of the heist curled around each other, her face against his chest, her hair tickling his nose. He can feel her snuggling in, holding him tighter, wanting five more minutes of peace, and he would give it to her, but they have a plan to set in motion and a time table to keep.

The art won’t steal itself after all.

But when she wanders out of the ensuite she seems far away even as she stands right beside him — eyes glazed over, staring at her own reflection in the mirror — but as always she comes back to herself when he takes her hand.

They spend the day waiting inconspicuously, sitting at a cafe table, watching people wander by. But Rose is incredibly quiet, her fingers picking at the hem of her sleeve where it falls over her hand.  He tries not to think about it, taking her head at smiling at her, distracting her with some story he’d read years ago.

But by evening, he’s certain there’s something she’s hiding and he can’t figure out why. There’s nothing she says — nothing worrying, but he keeps thinking back to the snapshots in her suitcase, her quiet gaze on tourist families and her pause when he’d brought up this job in the first place. Then she stops him before they break into the gallery, mouth falling open before she shakes her head.

He raises an eyebrow at her in the dark, expression curious behind the rim of his glasses.

But she looks away. “It’s not important. We’ve got a job to do, yeah?”

John nods and follows, pushing down the feeling of unease that had only grown over the last couple of days. _I trust her,_ he thinks. _Whatever happens._

-

It’s lucky enough that they manage to get the painting out of the gallery — not because of any guards or the alarm system, but because whatever has been bothering Rose keeps her distracted from the job at hand.

“The bag?” he asks, holding out a hand behind him, not looking at her, his focus on extracting the canvas and frame from the wall without damaging it.

“Hmm?”

“Rose? The bag? For the painting?” He turns to look at her, brows drawing down in confusion.

“Right, yeah. Sorry.” She passes the canvas bag over, gloved fingers gripping the cloth tightly.

“Where’s your head tonight, love?”

She opens her mouth, inhaling and squaring her shoulders as though she meant to explain.  “I… Now’s not the time.”

John sets the frame and painting in the bag carefully before leaning it against the wall.

“Talk to me, Rose. Whatever’s wrong, you don’t have to hide. Don’t try and protect me.”

“John…”

“It goes both ways, Rose. Please.”

She nods, sniffling though her eyes are dry. “Not here. I will, but first we need to get away.”  She steps around him reaching for the bag, but he catches her by the hand. The gloves between them feel like a wall, but it’s better than the distance. So, he holds her hand and they run.

-

The feeling of unease forms a stone in his gut when, as they board the train out of Rome, Rose takes the seat across from him, her suitcase settled beside her. The painting lays safely ensconced in it, covered by a layer of sundresses and clean socks. He watches her closely, focusing on the way her fingers fidget against the fabric of her shirt, plucking the hem again. Silence stretches between them, heavy and full of things unsaid.

John begins to speak, mouth open to ask her what was wrong when she whispers, words barely audible over the trundle of the train along the tracks. “I think I’m pregnant.”

The words don’t seem real, like impossibilities given voice. The silence. The photographs. The child at the fountain. It all suddenly clicks into place.

“ _What?_ ”

“I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s not something we ever discussed — why would we, after all?” She looks down at her lap, smiling sadly and shaking her head. Her voice comes out rapidly, breathless, saying, “This changes everything — I know it does, and I don’t know what I’ll do, but—”

“Rose, Rose.” Taking her hand is as easy as breathing, and he holds on, twining his fingers with hers. “Breathe.”

Her fingers curl around his and she exhales, looking up at him. The worry in her eyes is enough to make his heart break. Before he can question it or stop himself, he’s leaning across the gap between them and pulling her down, into his arms. She goes with him, the pair of them sinking to the floor; he drops down without complaint or word. She curls into his embrace as his arms wrap around her. He slows her breath with his touch alone.

There are so many things he could say, and perhaps should, but holding Rose as she sought comfort feels far more important than any words he could find.

She is the one to break the silence, voice ragged with barely-suppressed tears. “Who am I without all this?”

“Someone amazing. Someone whose future I’d love to see, no matter what it looks like.”

She pulls away from his chest, looking at him with wide, wet eyes. “You’d quit? Leave… this life behind?”

“Yes.” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in his voice. “I’ve always said — anywhere you want to go, Rose. Always.”

“Even that beach, the one south of Barcelona? Even if I wanted to stay?”

He smiles, lips pressed against her hair as he thinks of her laying in the sun.

“Even then. Especially then.”

 

 

**FOURTEEN: _The Next Life_**

 

The first thing Rose does in their house isn’t anything John expected. In fact, he doesn’t even know what she’s doing until he asks, looking over her shoulder where she was seated on the floor in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a scrapbook.”

Rose gestures over the years worth of Polaroids they’ve collected. They sit sorted into neat little stacks, tied with yarn or string, or a spare shoelace in one case.

He sits behind her, watching her grid out the photos onto blank pages with the same artistic flair that she used when composing the shots. Or when she dressed up for the fancier places they broke into. She leans back against him for a moment and his hands lay over her shoulders and she sighs.

“Why?”

She turns, pressing her cheek against his chest. She sits still against him for a long moment — so long that he’s sure she won’t answer the question. Perhaps there is no answer.  He trails his hands down her arms to settle over her middle, where her own hands are. Without a word, Rose twines their fingers together.

Then she speaks. “I always said I wanted to keep these memories. They deserve a home, too.”

He looks at the coat rack that holds the Polaroid for now, hung on the peg safely, just waiting to be used again.

“And what about the new ones?”

“Don’t worry. I have plans.”

-

The greenhouse is vibrant, filled with flowers of all shades, mixed together in an explosion of color than never fails to make her smile. Her hand drifts down to her middle, lingering over the barely there bump.

John doesn’t notice as she approaches, misting plants and humming to himself. The tune is a familiar one. One they’d listened to for years, singing it manically as they laughed and ran across the world — dancing on a knife’s edge. Rose can’t help the smile that grows on her face, the slow spread of joy that has settled itself in her bones.

She’d felt so scared of losing that side of herself for so long, of losing touch with the girl who ran across the world for the thrill of it. But she’d found that sunshine and quiet agreed with her — and that excitement didn’t have to come with the stinging burn of edging too close to flames. She could hold all that light inside her.

Now more than ever.

He turns and smiles at her, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and dirt under his nails.

“ _They headed down south and they’re still running today_ —” She half-sings and he laughs, spinning her into a hug.

“Just a bit slower now.”

“Shhh,” she soothes, running a hand over his chest, feeling his steady, even heartbeat beneath her hand. “You love it.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah. I do.”

She’d lived for so long with escape and danger in her blood that she hadn’t realized that it wasn’t what made her who she was. But someone had. And he’d stayed with her every step of the way.

And that was more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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